BOTTOM LINE
Decent and Safe, Even if Not a High-Five
PLATFORM
Sony LIV
RUNTIME
4 hours (7 episodes)
What Is the Series About?
Santosh Mishra, while understanding the changing needs of his growing sons, mulls the idea of buying a new home. His wife Shanti’s relationship with a neighbour turns sour after an insensitive remark. Aman returns home abruptly from college and lands in trouble with a local thug over a fake black magic ritual. Anand feels the pinch at work and tries hard to woo the dentist Preeti despite several challenges.
Performances
There’s always a danger of complacency associated with a performance, especially when you play the same role over five seasons. Jameel Khan and Geetanjali Kulkarni deal with that bottleneck the way only veterans can, approaching their work with earnestness rather than desperation to impress. Sunita Rajwar’s performance passes muster, though her segments clearly could’ve done with better writing.
Analysis
When does one realise that a show is becoming a spent force? While viewership metrics offer an easy answer, it also boils down to how far a team can replenish its creative juices season after season. For context, Gangaraju Gunnam, the mastermind behind the iconic Telugu sitcom Amrutham, which ran for 300 episodes, decided to end the show at its all-time peak, purely out of creative exhaustion.
With all due respect to the little joys Gullak has provided over the years, the necessity for a break is now more evident than ever. Even as its creator Shreyansh Pandey makes another valiant effort to extend its smooth run, the show’s old-world charm is clearly hanging by a thread in its fourth and the just-released fifth instalments. While it retains its core strengths, one can sense a lingering desperation in the air.
Despite its bid to capture the ebbs and flows of small-town, middle-class life in North India, Gullak continues to be very much a convenient, escapist fantasy. Its primary asset is its reasonably successful recreation of the simplicity that held together the Doordarshan soaps of the late 80s and 90s. It’s a deliberate throwback to a time when narratives thrived on domesticity, simplicity, and largely unchallenged social norms.
The more the show attempts to remain within this happy, insulated bubble, progressing at a leisurely pace while catering to nostalgia, the more its oddities and convenient ignorance become glaringly obvious. Gullak Season 5 has a very usual start with the innocent yet ambitious Mishras yet again dealing with challenges at work and home. You’ve watched all of it before, and it tries to offer us more of that.
The writing, the pacing and the conflicts – all in the same vein as the other seasons – feel quite formulaic. The house has just been repainted after years, and a wi-fi connection is finally in place. An unexpected guest – Santosh’s brother-in-law – lands at their doorstep like a parasite. Fresh after their online popularity and starting a women’s forum, Bittu’s mother (a neighbour) takes Shanti for granted.
The youngest Mishra, Aman, continues to goof around, making odd choices to earn a quick buck. Adulthood gradually begins to take a toll on the elder sibling Anand, who leads a double life, hoping to break free from the confines of a sales job at a pharma company. Just as you give up hope, the story’s loose ends are tied neatly, and the characters bare their concerns and vulnerabilities with utmost honesty.
A few elements particularly strike a chord well this time. When Bittu’s mother makes a snide remark about Shanti Mishra’s supposedly hapless existence without a stance (confining herself to domestic duties and serving men, generation after generation, a surprisingly valid criticism), it reveals the toxic side of pinning womanhood down to a particular definition, rather than letting a woman take a call on her identity.
Even if familiar, the unlikely love triangle among the medicos Priti, Prithvi and the underdog Anand, where a girl is caught between a safe choice and instinct, feels like comfort food. On a parting note, the conversation between the father and son about chasing one’s true calling and the guilt of asking help from a parent as an adult is quite relevant and well-written.
Aman’s thread is among the weakest of the lot this time. The absurd subplot about the honey-trap, black magic rituals and small-time thugs are forcibly woven into the narrative. The same-old debate about selling ancestral property and the typical decision of going against that idea feels stale. Though it doesn’t live up to its own standards, the formula, while creating monotony, also safeguards it.
Gullak Season 5 leaves you with the fatigue of a favourite dessert served one too many times. The taste remains familiar and sweet, but the excess is impossible to ignore.
Performances by Other Actors
Harsh Mayar remains familiar and relatable as Aman, but the true freshness comes from Anant V Joshi’s casting as Anand Mishra (in the place of a generally reliable Vaibhav Raj Gupta). As a simple man in love who wouldn’t compromise on his self-respect, he brings a genuine naiveté that elevates the performance. Helly Shah adds a vibrant screen presence as the free-spirited doctor, though Gopal Dutt doesn’t get to do anything new.
Music and Other Departments?
Arabinda Neog’s score remains functional, staying true to the essence of each scene without ever overstepping, delivering what is expected, nothing more. Similarly, cinematographer Nikhil Arolkar isn’t tasked with reinventing the visual language.
The familiar, easy-on-the-eye, and relatively muted colour palette suffices once again. The writing, however, feels slightly underwhelming, lacking the seamlessness that you expect from Gullak. It is a slow burn that, at times, tests your patience.
Highlights?
Performances, characters and the familiarity
Anant V Joshi’s casting (adds freshness and new appeal)
Touches upon a few good themes, has an effective climax
Drawbacks?
Feels slightly repetitive, feel-good factor missing
Lacks freshness in the writing (in the early episodes)
Did I Enjoy It?
It works mostly, even if it offers nothing really different from the previous seasons
Will You Recommend It?
If you liked Gullak till now and want more of the same, don’t think twice
Gullak Season 5 Review SonyLiv Series Reviewed by M9 News
